First of all we pick a nice day and send a photographer along to capture the photographs for the panaroma.

Back in the office, the photographs are painstakingly stitched together using the latest photo stitching software.

Then comes the tricky bit: identifying all the landmarks in the picture.

Identification starts with satelite photos from Google Earth. It’s often possible to identify landmarks from satelite photographs, or from our collection of aerial photographs taken from planes and helicopters, but sometimes it requires a lot of hunting around local websites, scanning of architectural journals, or even a trip to the landmark itself to work out exactly what that building is!

Once all of the landmarks have been identified we plot them all out on a Google Map like in the screenshot below. This plot is used to calculate the distances to each landmark, which are included in the final procZimity print.

This is the most enjoyable part of the process, where we get to learn about all the fascinating landmarks in the print. We do lots of research, finding out about history, architecture, and other interesting facts that can be included in the final annotations.

We use lots of different sources: internet databases, libraries, our own collection of books, first hand interviews with local experts and so on.

Once we’ve prepared all the annotations, they’re carefully overlaid on the panaroma photograph using professional graphic design software.

The final copy is proofed and checked, then sent off to the printers where a short run of prints are produced. Each one is carefully wrapped, and sent out to its delighted new owner.